Well, you can see why this blog is called HUPOMENO....because "hanging in there" is what my life, on most days, consists of. Which is not a bad thing....it is just my thing. Been an emotional week....dark clouds hang over my heart even as the sun has decided to come out and play. I refuse to go back on antidepressants though...I have gone through the worst year of my life with out those meds, and I will not go back. Hopefully. Lord willing. And so today, in His faithfulness to my ever wounded heart, God puts this reading in my path...
"God is a 1000 times more meticulous with us than even an artist is with his canvas. Using many brush strokes of sorrow and circumstances of various colors, He paints us into the highest and best image He visualizes, if we will only receive His bitter gifts of myrrh in the right spirit. Yet when our cup of sorrows is taken away and the lessons in it are suppressed or go unheeded, we do more damage to our soul than could ever be repaired. No human heart can imagine the incomparable love God expresses in His gift of myrrh. However, this great gift that our soul should receive is allowed to pass by us because of our sleepy indifference and ultimately nothing comes of it. Then, in our barrenness we come and complain, saying,'O, Lord, I feel so dry and there is so much darkness with in me!' My advice to you, dear child, is to open your heart to the pain and suffering and it will accomplish more good than being full of emotion and sincerity."
"The cry of man's anguish went up to God,
"Lord, take away pain:
The shadow that darkens the world You have made,
The close, choking chain
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs
On the wings that would soar,
Lord, take away pain from the world You have made,
That it love You the more."
Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world:
"Shall I take away pain,
And with it the power of the soul to endure,
Made strong by the strain?
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart
And sacrifice high?
Will you lose all your heroes that lift from the fire
Wisdom toward the sky?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price
And smiles at the loss?
Can you spare from your lives that would climb unto Me
The Christ on His cross?"

STREAMS IN THE DESSERT